Harrison On Nintendo's Shortcomings, Hopes

Thanks to EGM for their interview with Nintendo vice-president George Harrison, discussing the current state of the GameCube, as well as plans for the future. Harrison is surprisingly honest, commenting: "I think we've had individual successes with things like Zelda: The Wind Waker and Smash Bros. and others. If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key." He also explains the exact reasoning behind the GameCube's recent price drop: "We see people buying it for $99 as a second system; potentially someone who has owned a PlayStation 2 for three years already and know that they have another two or so years to wait [for the next console hardware generation]."

Comments

So what you're saying...

[Dancin_Santa]

George Harrison: If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key.

It's going to take time. A whole lot of precious time. It's going to take patience and time. To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right.

He's got a point

[NanoGator]

" I think that, clearly, the improvement in graphics and presentation by the systems is reaching diminishing returns. We've talked about this before, but the reason for a consumer to buy the next generation of hardware, for many of the competitors, is not going to be because the graphics are prettier. It'll ultimately come back to what is a unique gaming experience."

I think he's got that point nailed. Every generation, the artists have fewer and fewer limitations for creating realtime 3D graphics. We're at a point, even today, where the artist's style and vision are relative easy to achieve. How can the next generation of graphics be to the GameCube what it was to the N64? Beyond a few more polys and real-time shadow casting, not a whole heck of a lot. Whatever happens for the next systems, there's got to be a new dimension of gaming.

Nintendo's aware of this. And since it's not so obvious what the next breath-taking move is (i.e. with the N64, it was faster frame rates and higher resolution) I'm damn curious what Nintendo comes up with.

Re:He's got a point

[SmallFurryCreature]

BULLSHIT.

There are still an awfull lot of limitations. If you don't believe me fire up a FPS editor and try to create a truly nice level.

Sure for now the graphics look great. But then they also looked great a couple of years ago. Then new hardware came along and you went wow and promply forgot about how you thought the old games looked great.

Sure sadly an awfull lot of games seem to just use the extra power of the hardware for bigger textures and more rounded boobs. Doesn't mean you can't use it for different purposes. Like say populating a city with cars and pedesastrians for you to drive through? Notice how older games of this style didn't have civi cars? Why do think this was?

Yes I agree, it is going to be more about what you are going to do with the extra power of future hardware. No need to increase framerates above the refresh of the display or resolutions bigger then the number of pixels. But you can also use the extra power to create a more believable world. A world in wich when you chance the equipment on your character this is reflected in the graphics. A world in wich charactes properly walk on the floor even if it is a staircase not just hover above it. A world in wich cars propely move on their suspension so you can see if the car in front of you is about to loose control or is increasing his turn to close of the inside for you. Where on closing in on an enemy flight you can spot wether they already dropped their bombs so you can save your bullets for the other flight that has yet to reach their target. A fps where the enemy is carrying an m60 and you can see how many bullets there are left on his belt.

Sure I may be dreaming but I think their is still an awfull long way to go. I have seen the shift from where you needed to consult the manual to see what the hell that red thing on the screen was supposed to be to where it is obvious that you have come across a med pack. Now I want to play a game where I can no longer see that the designer had to restrict himself to an X number of polygons.

Oh and yes I do own a gba. So no I am not totally blinded by pretty graphics. But there is a reason people are excited about the PSP. Can you guess what it is?

Re:He's got a point

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, just as a reeeeeal off topic note, the other day I was playing Wind Waker and was guiding Link up a slope. I had the quick thought to stand Link parallel to the slope and see if one of his feet would go through the ground or stay in the air. I was rather impressed to see that his knees were bent properly, the way you would expect them to be, and there was no "through the ground" action.

Like I said, waaaay off topic, and not even really what you're talking about, but I thought it was slightly neat when I saw it.

Good plan

[The_dev0]

We see people buying it for $99 as a second system

I reckon this is an excellent move, as all the nintendo fanatics bought one in the first few weeks, but this allows them to get a chance in the homes of those with a PS2 and/or XBox, and let the games do the talking.

I think Nintendo is taking the right steps to disprove the misguided notion that the GCN is a kiddie's system, and for 99 bucks, a lot more people would take an interest. I could definitely justify buying a PS/2 for 100 bucks with a couple of titles, and the same goes for the XBox. I reckon Nintendo are counting on people buying a 100 buck GCN, one or two of their really huge titles, and giving any financial loss on the discount back to the big N in game sales.